iOS development: which book to start with?

I would THINK that those are 2 different editions of the same book, and that the one that says "Updated for iOS 5 and ARC" is the more current version, but I don't know for sure. The one that says "updated for iOS 5" is marked as a fourth edition, and the other one is marked as a second edition, which supports my theory.

If you open those links in Amazon and look through the tables of contents, the "updated for iOS 5 and ARC" version does seem to be a newer version of the same book.

 

Yes they are both editions of the same book.

Seems there is a fifth addition on the way.
Programming-Objective-C

Although any edition 2 and beyond will cover Objective C 2.0 and be a reasonable starting place. Objective C 2.0 is mentioned in the name of the second edition as that was the main feature of the update. Like ARC was the major update to the language for edition 4.

The updates cover a lot of niceness that has been added to the language. For example editions 2 and 3 will hammer Memory Management with retain/release in the fourth edition it's a brief intro then tells you to save the stress and use ARC. You really could start with any edition then grab the Apple WWDC videos from the last few years that cover "What's new in Objective-C". It's worth watching those videos anyway once your close to the end of the book. Just to get sense how the language is evolving.

After that then a book that introduces the iOS cocoa touch SDK would be a good next step. Like the first book linked or the Big Nerd Ranch books.

Have to say I found Kochan book(s) on Objective-C really good and still refer to them all the time.

 

You can learn the syntax of obj c pretty fast. If u have experience with oop, you won't have a problem to adapt to it.

I came from the world of PHP, which is quite easy comparing to obj c, but after two months? I swim at it quite well.

There are a lot of YouTube tutorials and google tutorials to obj c, which is a very nice bonus after u finish a book, but if u want to go into mobile development, I would recommend the book iOS Programming by Aaron Hillengs and his friend (forgot his name), they both from the Big Nerd Ranch guide. I used the 3rd edition of the book (20 pounds in amazon.co.uk) and I am very happy about it.

Good luck to you!